UPDATED PROGRAM NOVEMBER –  2020
 

If you would like to join our online events, please contact Matthew Bond matthewbond [at] thechristiancommunity.net

TRINITY

Cheryl is on leave from the 12th – 24th Nov

Tuesday 24^th November
7.30pm – 8.30pm:  Conversation and study.  Online Evening Study Group. 
Contact robinjaworski [at] gmail.com
 
Wednesday 25^th November (Revelation 5: 1 – 11)  
10am-11am: The Act of Consecration of Man
11.30am – 12.30pm:  In person & Online Study Group – “The Book of Revelation and the Work of the Priest”. Lectures by Rudolf Steiner September 1924.

Friday 27th November

7.30am: The Act of Consecration of Man

4.30pm: End of Life Care –meeting online

ADVENT

Sunday 29th November 1st week of Advent Luke 21: 25 -36

9am: Advent Festival for Everyone

9.30am: The Sunday Service for Children

10am: The Act of Consecration of Man;Also Advent activities preparing for Christmas.

11am: light brunch–BYOpicnic.

*Youth get-together during the day*

Here is a contemplation from Darryl Coonan:

Something I am increasingly confused and disturbed by is the extreme polarization of beliefs in the world, be they political, environmental or social. Our society is being increasingly split apart by such extreme and deeply held beliefs. Even families and people of the same faiths and churches are experiencing these divisions, with each side believing that only their truth is the right one. It is confusing to me how the truth separates people.

Our beliefs, our opinions are reinforced by the information we receive. However, quite often the information we find is from select social media, or regular media, outlets that largely support or confirm what we know. It is said we live in information bubbles and avoid or reject the media that is not in alignment with what we have decided is true. We are rarely exposed to the middle ground. People are increasingly becoming more left-wing or more right-wing, and more thoroughly entrenched in these positions. The worry is what this means for our society going forward. It is bad enough to believe that people on the opposite end of the polarity are deluded by their “fake” media, but it grows even more worrying when we see those, with these opposing beliefs, as the enemy, and not just the beliefs themselves. This is increasingly happening. The adversarial forces sow seeds of division and are so clever that human beings are increasingly turning against one another.

These times worry me, and I do not have a ready solution. I know there are good people on opposing sides of an argument who genuinely believe their opinions to be true. I know hatred or derision or dismissing the other only cements the divide, but how to heal the rupture? How is it possible to find the middle ground when I know I am right, and you are deluded?

Here is what I do know – the opposite of hate is love, that hate separates, so therefore I need to hold onto loving the other no matter what beliefs they hold. What else I can do is not yet so clear, but really loving an enemy can be truly powerful. I think about Christ, the being of love on the cross dying for all humanity, good and evil. On the cross his arms outstretched to enclose the whole earth. On the cross he remained upright in the vertical axis bridging the heavenly and the earthly world. In him we can see the intersection of the horizontal holding of the earth, and the vertical earthly and cosmic forces, meeting in his heart.

I am aware that my thinking is struggling to see a way to bridge the chasm of separation. I also notice that the emotions that arise in me tend to be the ones associated with my gut – fear or hatred. I am being manipulated by the adversarial forces. From the picture of Christ on the cross I see I must move to the heart, to find the place of love that is in me, Christ’s love welling up in me. I think that is the starting point for meeting the challenges of our times. I don’t know what else to do as yet, but I know where I have to start and where I have to return to when my head and my guts are being caught up in the separation that the adversaries are feeling so smug about. I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of turning me against others.

In the words of Martin Luther King Jr. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that”.